Huge demonstration, this time in black, in Iran

Iran

Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post

Published 4:00 am, Friday, June 19, 2009

A huge throng of opposition supporters, many clad in black, took to the streets of Tehran Thursday to mourn protesters killed by a pro-government militia and back a challenge to the proclaimed re-elections of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In response to a call by the leading opposition candidate in the June 12 presidential election, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the enormous procession streamed toward Imam Khomeini Square largely in silence, then broke into chants against Ahmadinejad and alleged electoral fraud, witnesses said.

President Trump addresses nation after mass shooting at Florida SchoolWhite House

Press TV, an English-language version of Iranian state television, said the crowd numbered in the "hundreds of thousands" and described the rally as "peaceful." It said Mousavi, in a brief address to the crowd, called for "calm and self-restraint." A Mousavi Web site estimated the gathering at more than 1 million people, the Associated Press reported.

Today, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, plans to lead prayers at Tehran University, which happens only on special occasions. The official Islamic Republic News Agency said a "massive turnout of the Iranian nation" for today's prayers would demonstrate "solidarity and unity among Iranians."

Iran's elite Guardian Council Thursday invited the four presidential candidates to a special meeting Saturday to review their concerns. The council, a 12-member panel of senior Islamic clergy and jurists, is charged with confirming the election results. It is investigating allegations of fraud and has agreed to a limited recount in places where irregularities are found.

"We decided to personally invite the esteemed candidates and those who have complaints regarding the election to take part in an extraordinary session of the Guardian Council to discuss their concerns with the members directly so that we will be able to make a decision," Abbas Ali Kadkhodai, a spokesman for the council, told Iran's state television Thursday. He said the council has received 646 complaints from Mousavi and two other opposition candidates who ran against Ahmadinejad.

In a statement Thursday, Iran's Intelligence Ministry claimed it had foiled plots by "several terrorist groups" with connections to foreign enemies, including Israel and Americans in neighboring Iraq, to set off bombs in mosques, polling stations and other crowded places during the election.

The march Thursday in teeming South Tehran, the poorest part of the capital, was intended to show a broad base of support for the opposition, which Ahmadinejad and his backers have denounced as reflecting the interests of more affluent Iranians in North Tehran. Witnesses said the marchers included people from all walks of life, from impoverished laborers to well-off businessmen.

Iranian news media, meanwhile, reported that a crackdown on prominent opposition figures, political analysts and journalists was continuing. Security forces on Wednesday detained opposition politician Ibrahim Yazdi, who served as foreign minister after the 1979 Islamic revolution, along with Mohammad Tavasoli, another veteran revolutionary, news services and Iranian newspapers said.

The invitation to the presidential candidates from the Guardian Council appeared to be an attempt to quell the rising tensions in the city over the outcome of the election.